


Kneecaps and Cadillacs

by henghost



Category: ITZY (Band)
Genre: F/F, Road Trips, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henghost/pseuds/henghost
Summary: With her brand new driver's license and Cadillac, Yeji takes Ryujin on a nighttime road trip to the Yellow Sea.
Relationships: Hwang Yeji/Shin Ryujin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Kneecaps and Cadillacs

**Author's Note:**

> You can't spell "NOT SHY" without "SOTY."

_Into the blue again after the money’s gone / Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground_

—Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

After the sun has set, Yeji leads Ryujin from their dorm to the tall concrete parking garage down the block. 

“You got a car?” says Ryujin, smiling wryly.

“A 2015 Cadillac CT6. I’ve been saving up for _quite_ a while now.”

“Yeji, we live in one of the world’s largest cities.”

“So?”

“So when are you going to have a chance to drive it?”

“On nights like these, of course. And what's the point of getting my license if I don’t have a car to drive?”

“When I got my license — on the first try, by the way (unlike you) — I didn’t immediately go and buy a luxury sedan.”

“That’s because you don’t have taste.”

They climb up the three flights of metal stairs to the floor with Yeji’s car. The garage is navy blue and totally empty this time of night. The vehicles are lined up like soldiers, gazing outward at the neon glow of Seoul in the darkness. Yeji pulls a ring of keys from her skirt pocket and clicks the button and two headlights blink like eyes and bathe them in burning white light.

“This is _yours?_ ” says Ryujin when she sees it.

“Yep. Pretty, ain’t she?”

“Yeji this is a _luxury_ car.”

“Well we’ve had a lot of success, haven’t we? Just wait till you see the interior.”

And she’s not kidding. Ryujin slides into the passenger seat and her eyes go wide. Plush leather seats. A backseat that could fit a whole family. A dashboard glittering like a constellation. 

Yeji puts the key in the ignition and twists and the thing thrums to life. She says, “This is the Cadillac CT6. I got interested in Cadillac after driving that vintage model for the Music Video. This one we’re in now was manufactured in China, although Cadillac is part of General Motors, which is an American company. The CT line was designed to appeal to rich Chinese as well as rich Americans. See, for every thousand Americans, upwards of five-hundred own a car. In China, that number is closer to fifty. So in the mid 2010s the major auto manufacturers started to focus on making cars for the people who would be sitting in the _back_ seat. Celebrities, politicians, that sort. They focused on implementing champagne chillers, Prada upholstery, and other premium amenities. And as such, the luxury car market has exploded in Beijing and Shanghai.”

“Jesus, Yeji.”

“I did my research.”

“Replace some of the words in that speech and you could be talking about the newest girl-group….”

Yeji pulls out, down the spiral ramps, and out onto the dark streets. It must be said that Yeji isn’t exactly the smoothest driver. She brakes too hard, white-knuckles the wheel, and is overall not as relaxed as driving instructors advise you to be. Ryujin wonders if she should’ve brought her bike helmet. 

“So where are we going?” asks Ryujin.

“I don’t know. West.”

“West? Like the Wild West?”

“That’s where the freedom is, right?”

“It’s gonna take us hours just to get out of Seoul.”

“We can sleep in the car.”

“Did you know Cadillac also manufactured the tanks the US used in the Korean War?”

“You’ve been spending too much time on Twitter, Ryujin.”

Yeji merges onto the road which follows the Han River on its path to the Yellow Sea. The streets are bloated and congested even as the clock approaches midnight. Ryujin thinks about switching on some music, but decides in the end that it would ruin the mood. Things feel deadly serious now. 

Instead she occupies the time by looking down at Yeji’s legs as they operate the pedals. She has a knee-length black skirt on, as well as black-and-white Converses, and so Ryujin can only see from her kneecaps to the tops of her ankles, but that’s enough. Yeji has the kind of legs mannequins are jealous of. Sure, Ryujin’s legs can do (much) more at the leg-press, but she would trade them away in a second in exchange for the elegance, the fairy-tale quality, of Yeji’s.

“You’ve got very pretty calves, Yeji.”

“Calves?”

“Kneecaps, too. So round and flawless and pale as marble.”

“Are you o _kay?_ ”

“A little on edge, I guess.”

An hour or so later they’re out of the city proper and on the road to the airport in Incheon. Out the left window is the river, black as obsidian and just as smooth. They’re far enough away from all the lights now that a few of the brightest stars are visible. Like cuts in the great onyx cloth of the sky. The farther they get from the Company building the faster Ryujin’s heart thumps against her ribs. She feels like a kid running away from home.

There had perhaps been some tension earlier in the day. They were filming some promotional material for the Comeback, and there had been a bit of a dispute over one of the videos — this confessional thing where the five of them, sans costumes/makeup/microphones, would talk about their “insecurities.” This way they would come across as NOT SHY. The others didn’t have a problem with it, but Ryujin’s thoughts were: that’s a little disgusting, isn’t it?

She got into a clipped, terse discussion with their manager. “It’s gross!” she said. “It’s bad enough I get treated like human chattel around here. Now you want to pawn my sadness off as well? Play ads in front of my therapy session?” But eventually she relented. This was her job, after all.

Still, it was nice of Yeji to help her get away from all that — if only for a little bit.

A plane comes into view, close to the ground and roaring. It’s framed in white by the huge, pregnant moon, its red and yellow warning lights like campfires in the dark, and the sight gives Ryujin a feeling in her chest like wonder — or is it dread? 

She sort of gasps and says, “Yeji, can we stop somewhere? To eat?”

“What are you in the mood for?”

“Something unhealthy. Something full of oils.”

“That sounds like heaven right now.”

They pull into a twenty-four-hour diner just west of the airport, whose fluorescent lights blare out of tall windows, illuminating the empty parking lot. They slide into a red vinyl booth and the sole stooped waitress comes over to take their order. Yeji gets iced coffee — “So I don’t fall asleep at the wheel.” — and an Oreo milkshake. Ryujin orders a Coke and a cheeseburger with … bacon, yeah, a-and chili fries! Mmmm….

“This is my treat, by the way,” says Ryujin, and picks at the dead skin on her fingers. “Your payment for being my chauffeur.”

“Fine. I’m happy to do it, though.”

“What?”

“Drive you around. Makes me feel important, somehow.”

“You’re weird.”

“Oh yeah? Wanna take another look at my kneecaps, Ryujin?”

“I see what you’re saying, but you really do have nice knees. And ankles.”

“You mean it?”

“Sure.”

Their food comes. Yeji lifts a soggy Oreo cookie out of the stainless-steel tumbler her milkshake came in and says, “I heard the ad we did for them, Oreo, boosted their sales a not insignificant amount.”

Ryujin says, “Gross.”

Yeji puts the cookie in her mouth and says in a muffled voice, “It’s actually very tasty.”

Ryujin cuts her burger in half with one bite. By the time she’s finished with the chili fries her fingers are stained the color of brick. When they’re done she gets the check and pays with two ten-thousand-won notes. Both use the urine-smelling bathroom, jittering now from sugar and caffeine, and then they’re off again, headed west. 

Soon the air is suffused with the salty breeze of the Yellow Sea. The buildings have shrunk considerably since Seoul, and patches of trees and grass can be spotted. It’s as though they’re in a different world. Yeji spots a sign for a scenic bluff and pulls her trusty Cadillac around a sandy bend, up to an asphalt lot which overlooks the sea itself. The only other car is an old red Toyota that’s shaking back and forth suspiciously….

“What is this place?” says Ryujin. “Makeout Point?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Yeji points out the front window at the sea, made gray and choppy by the nighttime air. It goes on and on and on. The waves like rippling scar tissue fold in and out of the blue, finally come crashing against the teal-sand shore. The noise is like TV static, but somehow more intimate, as if the water is whispering in the earth’s ear. Somewhere, just over the horizon, new Cadillacs are being manufactured. 

Ryujin takes from her jeans-pocket her packet of Esse cigarettes and her disposable yellow lighter. Yeji only notices when she flicks on the flame. 

“Jesus, Ryujin, where the hell did _that_ come from?”

“What?”

“You _smoke?_ ”

“Sometimes. So?”

“So! So that’s very bad for you. Plus it’s gotta be hell on your voice.”

“Well it’s _my_ voice,” says Ryujin, and lights the tip, which burns bright-red through the liquid darkness all around them now. 

“At least roll a _win_ dow up,” says Yeji, and presses the button to do so. “I just _got_ this car.”

Ryujin takes a drag, puts her arm out the window and taps the ash onto the sand, and exhales bluish smoke, which rises spectrally up into the briny moonlight. She says, “Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging you,” says Yeji. “I just … care about you. I worry about you.”

“Don’t worry so much. It makes you a worse driver.”

A stifled scream comes from the red Toyota, and they both giggle. “Love is in the air,” says Yeji.

Ryujin sucks again at the cigarette and says, “Sorry for causing so much trouble earlier.”

“You mean with the promotional video thing? That was nothing.”

“Sometimes I think I’m not very good at this. This job, I mean. Singing and dancing is fine, but the other stuff — the other stuff gets to me.”

“I wouldn’t trust you if it didn’t. Jesus, would you _stop_ smoking. It’s giving me a heart attack just to _watch_ you. You’ll get yellow fingers, you know.”

Ryujin grins and flicks the half-finished cigarette out the window, where it lands with a _click._ “Yellow fingers, yellow teeth, Yellow Sea.”

“Don’t _litter_ either.”

“I’ll get it in the morning.”

And she turns to look at Yeji, and perhaps her nicotine tolerance is lower than she thought because now a rush of frantic silliness hits her head all at once. Yeji’s big cat eyes glitter like little disco-balls in the meager light. And her legs!

“Yeji, can I kiss you?”

“God are you high al _read_ y?”

“I mean it.”

“You really want to kiss me? On the lips?”

“Sure. Why not.”

Yeji blushes the color of fire and looks out at the water. “I don’t know. I bet your breath smells like tobacco.”

“Well then what about … what about your kneecap?”

“My kneecap?”

“What if instead of kissing your mouth I kiss your kneecap?”

“Um, fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

Ryujin grins broad and takes off her seatbelt and leans over the gearstick and puts her mouth on Yeji’s kneecap. _Patella_ — that’s the scientific word. She sucks hard enough to leave a mark, then runs the tip of her tongue along the length of the joint.

Yeji sort of grunts and says, “Why does that — why does that feel so _good?_ ” And she stretches and—

 _Vroom_. The Cadillac lurches forward, and both of them scream, and in her haste to get her foot off the gas pedal Yeji knees Ryujin in the chin. One wheel has gone over the edge of the bluff. Ryujin must have bumped the stick into drive.

After a few seconds of terrified breathing when it becomes clear they are no longer in immediate danger, Yeji says, “Goddam, that was _way_ too close,” and goes to put the car in reverse.

Ryujin stops her. “Leave it.”

“What do you mean leave it?”

“I like it like this, with one wheel over the edge.”

“You’re so, so weird.”

Yeji puts it into park and puts on the handbrake, too. “Oh god,” she says. “What is that couple going to think of us? Licking and screaming….” And then she leans over and kisses Ryujin on the mouth for a few seconds. 

“I thought you didn’t want to,” says Ryujin afterward.

“Near-death experiences put things in perspective.”

“We weren’t near death.”

“Yes we absolutely were. There’s nothing but water down there.”

“My chin hurts.”

“Sorry. Gimme one of those.”

Ryujin hands Yeji a cigarette and lights it for her, but she jabs it into the steering wheel after one inhalation. “That is _aw_ ful.” Ryujin laughs and kisses her again. “The sun will be up soon.”

They sleep tangled together in the supersized backseat despite the summer heat, one wheel still spinning idly over the ceaseless waves.


End file.
